Comparative Study Of English Reading Strategies Between The Liberal Arts And The Science Of College Students

English reading strategies have significant influence on reading proficiency. There are somedifferences between the science and the liberal arts students in using English reading strategies, which haveattracted the attention of second language researches and studies in this area have generated mixed findings.It is necessary to take further study to reveal that how different majors affect the use of English readingstrategies on different majors’ students. This study is based on some previous studies and correlativeliterature review and attempts to answer the following three questions:(1) Are there any significantdifferences in English reading strategies between the students of the liberal arts and the science?(2) DoEnglish reading strategies have significant influence on their reading achievements between the liberal artsand the science students?(3) What’s the difference between the liberal arts and the science students ofdifferent reading proficiency levels in using reading strategies?The124sophomores from Northwest Normal University between the liberal arts students and thescience students are randomly selected as participants, including62science students and62liberalstudents. For the purpose of collecting relevant data for this study, an English reading strategyquestionnaire based on strategy inventory for language learning of Oxford is revised to elicit dataconcerning students’ strategy use. A reading comprehension test is randomly selected from PECT4whichis used to assess students’ English reading proficiency and to group students into three levels according totheir reading scores. All the data are analyzed through SPSS13.0. A semi-structured interview is used as asubsidiary research tool aiming to reflect from another perspective. Ten interviewees are picked outaccording to their answers to the collected questionnaires. The results of the study are as follows:First, both the science and the liberal arts students can use reading strategies in the process of theirreading; and the frequency of using English reading strategies of liberal arts students is higher than thatones. Meanwhile the science students are better at take–noting, analysis and deduction strategies thanliberal arts students. There is no significant difference in socioaffective strategies for both the science andthe liberal arts students and both of them don’t do well in this strategy.Second, English reading strategies have a significant effect on their reading achievement for twokinds of students.Third, there are significant differences in English reading strategies for different reading level of twokinds of students. In view of this, some pedagogical implications and suggestions are put forward as follows. First, inorder to improve the reading comprehension achievements, English teachers should train their students’reading strategies. Second, the teacher should let them understand their majors’ features and teach them tomake choices suitably and to use reading strategies flexibly to improve their reading achievements fordifferent majors’ students...